GERMAN KRIEGSMARINE SUBMARINERS KNIGHTS CROSS OIL PAINTING.

A hugely impressive oil painting of the submarine Knights Cross winner Heinz Krey. Heinz Krey was born in Wiesbaden in December 1921 and was killed on the 23rd May 1943 in the middle of the North Atlantic. He was posthumously awarded the Knights Cross on the 4th September 1943. This beautiful painting completed in oil on board, shows Krey 3/4 length wearing his Kriegsmarine officers uniform, has recently appeared onto the collectors market from the Wiesbaden area and was in the possession of his family from WWII until today. The painting, which we imagine was executed as a memorial to him on the instruction of his family, was painted after his death. It is signed and dated 'Griessler 1943', it shows Heinz Krey standing with a plain background, wearing his naval junior officers visor cap, Knights Cross at neck, awards worn include the Iron Cross 1st class, the Kriegsmarine Minesweeper badge and the Kriegsmarine Submarine badge, with the ribbon of the Iron Cross 2nd Class to the upper button hole, he is holding a pair of gloves in his right hand and has his left hand on his Kriegsmarine officers dagger. The painting is in a plain battleship grey wood frame, which is extremely typical of the period. In over 35 years of handling military artefacts, which involve many items of the Third Reich we have never been able to obtain or even seen a Submariners Knights Cross officers painting as good as this. It is quite an interesting fact that with the huge amount of artists available in Germany and with it being well within the culture, how very few good paintings are seen of WWII famous personalities, this painting would be a superb backdrop to any collection of either Kriegsmarine or Submariner basis. Krey entered the Kriegsmarine in December 1939 as an engineer officer candidate, he went through various training units and May 1940 was an officer cadet. Krey's U-Boat career was with two boats, U-703 in which he did two patrols totalling 45 days and U-752 again two patrols with a total of 68 days. He was an engineer officer on U-703 and was Chief Engineer on U-752. May 23rd 1943 a British Fairy Swordfish aircraft attacked the U-Boat and killed the Commander and some men on the conning tower, Leutnant Krey took over the command and ordered all men to abandon the U-Boat because two British destroyers arrived quickly and tried to capture the boat Heinz Krey set the explosive charges and blew up the boat, he went down with the submarine losing his life, for that outstanding and unselfish feat he was posthumously awarded the Knights Cross, he was 21 years and 6 months old.

Code: 53859